For a period of two weeks the festival will introduce different hot-spots in Vienna. The decision to create a core zone with diverse hot-spots in the city rather than working with exhibition halls and conference centers is strongly related to this year’s sub-topic City as Interface. We wanted to design a dislocated and alternative festival structure presenting itself in public all over the city. Looking at one of the emerging areas of Vienna called the Donaukanal and its neighboring districts, it became clear that this area represents many aspects of our understanding of a City as Interface. A city where media facades, skyscrapers, bars, restaurants, clubs, public transportation, waterways, recreation areas and sometimes unpittoresque and unused areas clash. On different days of the festival a time-based dramaturgy instead of a simultaneous program has been developed for several hotspots. This idea stands for the basic curatorial concept of the festival. In the first week the different hotspots and intervention areas will be presented. The second week will feature workshops and talk-events to engross and reflect on the proceedings of the previous week and to contextualize the curatorial concept.

Sub-Curatorial ModelWithin the so-called sub-curatorial model we invited national and international groups and organizations to work with us together on the topic and develop different modules for the focus days and hotspots. Especially for the exhibition and presentation formats this kind of distributed development introduced a different way of organizational flow within the festival production.

In June 1988, the Serapions Ensemble Vienna finished the adaptation of the huge hall of the Viennese Getreidebörse (corn exchange) into a place for events. Coded Cultures is opening the Festival 2011 with the Japanese presentation format Pecha Kucha to initialize a two- week long series of focus events on New Media Art. OPENING: 19:00

The Channel of the Danube in Vienna, especially the area around the Badeschiff and the Urania will be revitalised with an extensive festival program including actions and interventions in public space. Lots of events and presentations will take place at the Central Garden and the Adria. In the evening, these locations at Central Garden and the Badeschiff will be transformed and function as bars/ lounges and meeting-places.

The Festival will present current positions in the disciplines of New Media Art and two Artists-in-Residence. On 23.9.2011, discussions on international positions in Media Arts and New Media Cultures will be organized in Raum D (hall D) of the MQ in cooperation with the transmediale, Media Lab Prado, the Amber Festival and the Enter Festival.

In large parts of the 2nd Viennese district, Offspaces, artist studios, project/event spaces and galleries will present themselves in a focus-day, p.e. THIS.PLAY, Glockengasse No9, LABfactory, MAGAZIN and the LUST gallery will exhibit in different ways on the topic “City as Interface”.

For four days,THIS.PLAY (Glockengasse 10-12) will be the host place for workshops with international guests, who will talk about current practices and interventions in New Media Arts. The offspace provides the opportunity for the participants to plan and work on projects with experienced artists and to try out the results in the 2nd district of Vienna afterwards.

Gentrification, city branding and cultivated hedonism clash with critical research positions of contemporary digital artists. eSeL’s Guided Tour offers a sensual and exciting, as well as critical view behind the curtains of selected venues and cooperation partners of the festival. These tours and locations are offical parts of “ORF-Lange Nacht der Museen”. Website: http://langenacht.orf.at